It is raining, like it hasn’t stopped for 4 months - people are tired and hoping for the business of open borders · my presence only seems to exacerbate the obnoxious fact of closed borders; ain’t life grand. The long slow cooked chicken noodle soup a la ‘Nowhere in Particular is sumptuous and i have no one to eat with - the long suffering, but circumstantially greedy landlords want me to stay, even reducing the rent, but have yet to connect the fact that until they repair the roof, anyone who lives here will suffer the same mold that has reduced the walls of my “foreigner villa” to abstract murals of shades of green and white only somewhat more natural than the cosseted efforts of local “art aficionados” under the careful tutelage of imported “art industrialists” which pales in cultural impact to the deluge and its economic threat to ancient agriculturally-based food sovereignty. The cognoscenti ignore my cautions that the corporate food paradigm is not their friend and so open restaurant after
“hip” restaurant to satisfy the finicky palettes of the hopefully soon to arrive tourist hordes coming to the rescue that Mssr _rump promised in his veiled threats against the “boogey man” to the North; the Ngoui Viet have been repelling the boogey men for well over 2,000 years and need no help from a non-potty trained, rumpled suit con from Scarsdale - apparently no one told the Politburo.
I’ve never been under cloud cover this long, 4 months and counting, and have begun to understand the deleterious effects of shade. Yet there is a dread about the obscene heat which follows the short window of a temperate winter in this remarkable country of contrasts. When i say deleterious effects from a lack of sun, i’m referring to the malaise that insinuates itself into one’s soul. And when i say contrasts, there were days during the hottest part of the summer i had to contract a cab to get from where i’d walked to after i’d left my bicycle for servicing; the heat from the sun was beyond my physical endurance to retrace my steps. Now a scant 7 months later i’m whinging about shade - go figure · It is easy to imagine why the population here is quite so susceptible to the siren song of capitalism and how with just the right location and proper “concept” anyone will be able to command bezosesque villas anywhere in the world - Ad copy from “Trump University.” Disclaimer: Trump=Lie
And herein lies the rub, no one is coming to rescue us (humanity) - if the steps you take are not born of concrete self awareness from “bitter searching of heart,” you will be thrall to each and every prompt dictated by your +/- 5v shackle on which you may even be reading this cautionary tale. We as a species cannot ascribe our misery to such an empty spirit as the former leader of the free world #45; just look at how his friends are fleeing the sinking ship while attempting to abscond with the tattered remnants of perceived power of his 4th Reich, each clutching a fist full of hate they’d conceived of as born within the genius generous heart of Mr. “empty suit” himself shimmering with virulence, rather than virility. The premise that someone is going to protect you by using their fear as your shield is just fucking stupid.
I know i’ve tried, not consciously but by imagining that if i aligned myself with scary people it would rub off on me and i could frighten into submission those who bully me - a long road to nowhere. It is myself that i fear - the painful process of peering into that shadow part of me that does not believe i am worth affection, respect and regard. And there is no easy path out of such misconception except to hold the gaze of one’s self - to mercilessly examine each act of love against each act of aggression and try to honestly determine which is which. What has saved me is the conviction that regardless of any heinous deeds i may have committed in my life, it was done by the same person sitting here now exploring my nakedness as honestly and lovingly as i have learned i can be - that and strengthening those aspects of my self i love most in others · compassion, generosity, kindness . .. ···
There is no expert solution that is bandied about in popular DIY enlightenment programs; there is no messiah worthy of her allure that would declare, “I know what you need.” The answers are only contained within each of our salty hearts cured in the crucible of strife and failure. That is not to say we cannot be aided by others, because the delusion of solitude melts continually into the shoreline of awareness - anytime you look at the misery of a mother’s face witness the pain of her child, no matter how full up you are with delusion, there has been such an expression somewhere in your own life - that is your salvation. If you can dwell for even a moment on the face of someone you recognize is suffering, you are on your way to your own salvation.
jts 14/12/2020
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